Higher Bar for Universities and Affirmative Action

The Economist August 24th, 2013

Briefing Black America:With his “I have a dream” speech, Martin Luther King threw out a challenge to America. How has it been met, 50 years out?

This is the lead article in the Economist for August 24th of this year. Among the parts of the article, one: Children stripped of their selfhood speaks to the problems for black children, including “in 2011 55% of black children were being raised by a single parent. Such children are four times more likely to be poor than children raised by their married parents.

The roots of many of these problems lie in the legacy of slavery and segregation. but the important question is not where they came from, but how to ameliorate them now. The era of race-conscious law appears to be drawing to a close. Last June the Supreme Court invalidated an important clause of the Voting Rights Act (1964), leaving its future uncertain. The court also set a higher bar for universities that want to use affirmative action, which several states have already outlawed.”

A higher bar makes it more difficult for universities who are committed to affirmative action. Bars set higher in track meets raise the difficulty.